“No,” I whispered.
“Right. No. No one does. Not you. Not me. No one. You loved him, you believed in him, far’s you were concerned, he didn’t take those hits, the day after, he coulda got his head outta his ass and done right by you. You held onto that belief. Nothin’ wrong with that except the fact that he never manned up and that’s on him not on you.”
It was my turn to stare at him and I did this trying to come to terms with the fact that he was sage.
Then I told him. “I think I’m done sharing.”
To that, he muttered, “I bet.”
And to that, I replied, “Your turn.”
He jerked up his chin and then stated immediately, “I’m thirty-six. Never been married. I’m a licensed automotive mechanic… or I was. My Dad’s alive, a drunk and an ass**le. My Mom’s alive and a bitch ‘cause her husband’s a drunk. Or maybe he’s a drunk because she’s a bitch. Whatever, they define dysfunction and I been livin’ with that shit since I had memories. My Dad’s parents hated my Mom and died doin’ it. They had reason. My Mom’s parents returned the favor with my Dad but their reasons, in the beginning, were different and total bullshit. They’re alive and I had not one thing to do with them when I was a kid, their choice, and not when I grew up either and that choice was mine. I got a younger brother who’s a pain in everyone’s ass. He’s thirty-three and been married four times, got five kids and my guess, he marries women and makes babies ‘cause he gets off on bein’ a pain in the ass and wants to spread that shit around far’s he can. Good news is, he moved to Los Angeles and that proved far enough away, his talent with being a pain in the ass didn’t reach. I grew up in Carnal, Colorado and I just got done doin’ a nickel for a crime I didn’t commit in a state I never stepped foot in until I was extradited there to stand trial.”
Then he stopped talking.
I waited.
He shared no more.
Then I asked, “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“I shared more than you,” I pointed out.
“How you figure that?”
“Okay, I didn’t share more but mine was more personal and included me coming to terms with something I’ve been avoiding coming to terms with for nearly twenty years. Those terms are uneasy terms and I’m still processing but still. You shared a lot and some of it was big, as in way big, but there was no detail and hence that’s not it.”
“Said give and take, didn’t say it would be equal. You picked, I picked. That’s fair.”
It was not.
And because it wasn’t, I asked, “You didn’t commit the crime you served time for?”
“Nope.”
“What happened?”
His eyes moved directly to the game.
“Ty,” I called and his eyes came back to me. “What happened? How could you –?”
“What’d I say?” he cut me off to ask.
“What?”
“What’d I say?” he repeated.
“About what?”
He held my eyes. Then, low and more rumbling than normal, he stated, “That’s it.”
And that, obviously, was it.
“Next time we play this game, you get to go first,” I declared and then watched with intense fascination as his lips curved up the minutest bit.
Then they uncurved and he muttered, “That’s fair too.”